SUNRISE — Two arm-waving, expletive-spewing maniacs were stalking retirees Tina and Jim Ratcliff as they drove through Sunrise on their way home to Plantation — honking all the while and at one point hitting their van's door with a golf club.

"We need to get some cops over here fast," Tina Ratcliff told a dispatcher, according to the 911 call released to the Sun Sentinel. "My husband's trying to get away from them and they keep following us."

The couple became victims of road rage and a fractured 911 emergency dispatch system that had them repeating their story to three dispatchers — first Plantation, then Sunrise, then Plantation again — before finally getting help more than seven minutes after they called 911.

Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan says the Feb. 2 incident illuminates one of the problems with Broward County's 911 emergency dispatch system, where cellphone calls often aren't routed to the right center.

Because the systems don't "talk" to each other, callers sometimes end up having to repeat information to dispatchers from different agencies, delaying a timely response, say county and municipal officials critical of the system.

When the dispatcher asked if the Ratcliffs were in Sunrise, Tina gave this exasperated response: "God darn it! Don't you know where we're at? I'm giving you the addresses."

According to the Ratcliffs' letter: The incident began in a local market where Jim Ratcliff said a man pushed a cart into him, cursed at him and threatened to meet him outside. When the Ratcliffs got in their van, someone in another car yelled at them and began following them. Jim Ratcliff said the driver was the same man from the market.

Eventually, the Ratcliffs were able to ditch the car chasing them and pull over. Two officers — one from Plantation and one from Sunrise — responded.

The Ratcliffs, both retired cops, had the car's make, model and tag number.

The Sunrise officer tracked down the driver at his home, but the man denied being involved in a road rage incident that night. No charges were filed in the incident.

County Commissioner Lois Wexler says she will ask her colleagues Tuesday to raise the tax rate slightly to help raise money for a $42 million regional 911 system that voters asked for a decade ago. The cost would translate to $22 a year for the average homeowner, Wexler said.

The new system would cost $11 million less than the $53 million now being spent, Wexler said.

"With consolidation we can eliminate the misdirected calls and speed up response," Ryan said.

Misdirected 911 calls like the Ratcliffs' happen every day throughout the county, Ryan said.

"She assumes she's on the phone with Sunrise," Ryan said of Ratcliff. "But because she's on a cellphone, the call gets routed [by a cell tower] to Plantation. Then the call gets routed to Sunrise dispatch. They're heading into Plantation, so our dispatcher transfers the call back to Plantation."

The Ratcliffs were out of town this week and could not be reached for comment.

But two days after the incident, the couple wrote letters of complaint to Sheriff Scott Israel, Broward County Mayor Kristin Jacobs and the mayors and police chiefs of Sunrise and Plantation.

"Most people out there assume that when you call 911, you're going to get exactly what you need," Wexler said. "And that's not always the case, especially in the world of cellphones."